


First Night Jitters

by pikablob



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Cute, F/F, Gen, Ignores The Last Jedi, Meet-Cute, Pre-Slash, can be seen as platonic or romantic, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 14:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18875254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikablob/pseuds/pikablob
Summary: Spending her first night on D'Qar, Rey struggles to sleep. Luckily, she's not the only one awake late.





	First Night Jitters

[Resistance Base, D’Qar, 00:47. ~18 hours after the Battle of Starkiller Base]

Rey couldn’t sleep.

Everything just felt too wrong. Her bed was unfamiliar, as was the room around her, and she had too much on her mind for it to settle.

The First Order was defeated, their terrifying weapon destroyed, but Han was dead and Finn was still barely clinging to life in a bacta tank. She had come so close to death on Starkiller, blade-to-blade with Kylo Ren, and the feeling of the Force surging through her in that moment still hadn’t quite subsided.

She got up slowly, climbing out of bed. Her room was dark, cold, and neatly ordered, a far cry from the familiar clutter of her old home on Jakku. She had become used to that place, despite the harsh climate and dangerous work. This felt too different for her to be comfortable.

She stepped into the hallway, stumbling towards where she hoped the nearest exit was; what she needed right now was some fresh air. She hadn’t had time to learn the base’s layout since arriving yesterday, and she wasn’t about to wake up half of D’Qar by switching on the base’s lights. So she meandered on, her eyes adjusting to the darkness.

Instead of an exit, she found herself in one of the hangars. Judging by the craft around her, this one was for transport craft; several U-55 Loadlifters stood around, as well as a Ghtroc 690 on her right. The far end of the cavernous room opened out, revealing the unfamiliar stars of D’Qar’s sky.

There was a pleasantly cool breeze blowing in from the open doors and the starlight made it easier to navigate. She instinctively walked towards the most familiar thing in the room: the Ghtroc freighter.

Her thoughts drifted back to Jakku as she approached, back to the similar ship she had found buried in the sands. She remembered how she had restored it, and how it had been snatched from her. She frowned, examining the ship in front of her.

It was hastily splattered in Resistance colours, much less coherently than the Loadlifters and other ships she had seen. The weapons were clearly aftermarket; the top turret looked to be Corellian, though it was hard to tell in the darkness. Under the cockpit canopy there was a name painted in aurebesh: _Desert Scavenger_. The irony wasn’t lost on her.

A sudden clatter made her jump. She looked around, catching a faint glow from within one of the Loadlifters. She paused for a moment; apparently she wasn’t the only one awake this late, and she wasn’t sure what to think of that. She wanted to go and look, to maybe find some company, but at the same time anybody up this late probably wanted to be alone. After a moment her curiosity won out.

She started walking towards it, threading between the darkened transports until she reached the one she had seen. The boarding ramp was down, and the glow still shone within. She could hear more sounds from inside; the clank of metal on metal echoed, and the light flickered slightly through the windows.

Quietly, she entered the transport, wincing as she stepped into the light, shining from the back of the craft. Her eyes slowly adjusted, revealing the source was a datapad left leaning against the back wall.

Detached panels lay all around the aft of the ship, leaving most of the engine exposed. A toolbox sat to one side, open and with several tools discarded around it. Several components had been removed from the engine itself, and were placed on the floor in a heap.

In the middle of it all was a technician, partially obscured by the engine block they were leaning their entire upper body into. Rey shifted uncomfortably, suddenly feeling like an intruder. As she stood by there was a flash of torch-beam from between the pipes and ducts and a hand reached out, dropping a small hydrospanner. It clattered to the floor.

The technician started feeling around their feet, seemingly trying to find a different tool. After a moment of fruitless search they gave up and pulled their body out of the engine, turning around to have a proper look. Their handheld torch flashed across Rey’s face, causing her to shield her eyes with her arms. The technician let out a yelp of surprise, torch clattering to the floor.

“Hey-” the technician began. Rey lowered her arms, getting a good look at them for the first time.

She was a girl about Rey’s age, clad in standard overalls that were speckled with grease and oil. Her face was smudged in several places with more of the stuff, and her black hair was short and messy, with bangs that curled up at the ends and a rough ponytail sticking out at the back. At full height, she stood about a head shorter than Rey.

“Sorry,” Rey mumbled, stepping back towards the boarding ramp. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“You’re Rey,” the technician breathed, eyes going wide. She rapidly wiped her hands on her trousers, trying to make herself a little more presentable. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting to meet you. People don’t tend to come to the hangars this late, especially not heroes like you.”

Rey paused, not entirely sure what to think about the girl in front of her. She didn’t feel like a hero even now; it still felt like she should have been able to save Han, and keep Finn safe.

“Poe told us all what happened on Starkiller,” the technician continued, “About how you escaped, and how you went one-to-one with Kylo Ren. That must’ve…” She trailed off, noticing Rey’s discomfort. “Are… you okay?”

“I’m… fine,” Rey said after a moment, “It’s just memories. A lot’s happened recently and I’m still taking it all in. It’s not to do with you. You can keep going, uh…” she trailed off, realising she didn’t know the girl’s name.

“It’s Rose,” the technician explained, “Tico. Flight engineer for the _Cobalt Hammer_ , but I work on a lot of other ships here as well, like this one.”

“What are you doing to it?” Rey asked, mentally assessing the discarded parts around Rose’s feet. None of them were identical to what she’d seen Jakku, but almost all of them were similar. Most of it was nondescript ducting, but then she noticed several vents, and a heat-sink array wrapped in coolant piping. Rose had seemingly taken off the entire engine cooling system, or at least most of it.

“It’s kinda complicated,” Rose shrugged awkwardly.

“I know a lot about how ships work,” Rey said confidently. “I used to work in salvage back on Jakku; I even once restored a Ghtroc 690 to full working order. You know, I saved the _Falcon_ from a hyperdrive overload.”

“Really?” Rose’s face lit up. “How?”

“There was a power surge,” Rey explained, slipping back into her element, “And we ruptured a coolant line. There wasn’t time to route power to auxiliary so I just bypassed the compressor entirely.” She mimed yanking the offending component free.

“And that fixed it?”

“It was putting too much stress on the hyperdrive,” Rey continued. “It was already running above specification, so adding that to the system was just causing surges and damaging the cooling system.”

“Right,” Rose beamed. “I had no idea you were into this stuff. I’m pretty sure I scared Jess off the time I tried to explain how a Holzmann drive works.” That got a chuckle out of Rey. “So, you want to take a look inside this thing?” She stepped aside to show the opening into the ship’s engine.

“Sure,” Rey smiled, stepping forwards carefully over the dismantled cooling system. She reached the cavity and stuck her head inside, joined after a moment by Rose with a torch. Rose shone the beam onto the underside of the main thruster, where the heat sinks had been unfastened from.

“You see that?” she pointed towards the rear of the thruster. There a new system had been connected to the coolant lines, as well as to the duct that most likely carried the cables connecting the thruster to the main computer. Half-constructed valve-lines radiated off it, snaking away towards the outside surface of the ship.

“Yeah,” Rey replied, “It’s some kind of replacement cooling system, I think.”

“It’s more than that,” Rose explained, flashing her light over the valve-lines, “It disperses engine heat throughout the hull.”

“So it hides the heat signature from the engines?” Rey asked.

“Yes,” Rose beamed. “It makes it much harder for the First Order to pick us up on scopes, so we can slip past their blockades undetected without having to install a proper cloaking device, which would be too expensive.”

“Impressive,” Rey said quietly. “Did you come up with this?”

“Yeah,” Rose murmured, nodding. “I mean, it’s probably nothing compared to some of the stuff you’ve seen, but still.” She pulled out of the engine block. Rey followed suit, frowning.

“Don’t put yourself down,” she said quickly, “A cloaking device made from just heat sinks and old piping is pretty amazing; not even the First Order could come up with that one.“ Rose blushed. Rey realised she was doing the same.

“Thanks,” Rose said quietly.

 


End file.
